Often, daughter boards are mounted to mother boards to provide additional features on the mother board. This is often accomplished using either an electrical connector mounted on the edge of the daughter board or, alternatively, a series of electrical contacts can be mounted along the edge of the daughter board, to extend beyond the edge of the daughter board, and to provide electrical connection between pads on the daughter board and the mother board. One specific example has a series of contacts which have surface mount tails soldered to contact pads on the daughter board and extending along the edge of the daughter board. The contacts have pins which are received within through holes on the mother board to provide electrical connection between the daughter board and the mother board. Because of the large numbers of contacts that are to be secured to the daughter board, and the tight spacing of these contacts, it is very important to make sure that the contacts are properly aligned with the contact pads and to make sure that they are all properly spaced from each other. Further, it is important to provide an easy way of mounting the contacts to the daughter board.
One method for mounting the contacts on the daughter board is to mount the plurality of contacts on a carrier strip having the appropriate spacing between the contacts. The carrier strip is then held against the daughter board so that the solder tails of the contacts are pressed against the contact pads. The carrier scrip is then held while the solder tails are soldered to the contact pads. The carrier strip can then be removed from the contacts. The carrier strip is typically two thin pieces of plastic which are mounted along either side of the contacts and is easily removed from the contacts.
One problem that is encountered using this method is that there is no convenient way of automatically aligning the contacts in the plastic carrier strip to the contact pads on the daughter board and to provide ease of automatic mounting of the contacts to the daughter board.
What is needed is a apparatus and method for automatically mounting the contact to the edge of the daughter board while providing proper alignment and positioning of all the contacts simultaneously.